March 7, 2011

“The study was carried out using a cross-sectional approach, involving interviews with 500 households randomly selected from three urban areas in Alexandria (Bab Sharki, El Gomrok and Karmouz). A questionnaire interview was conducted with married females in these households to determine prevalence of consanguineous marriages and to study knowledge of married females about causes and effects of consanguineous marriages. Prevalence of consanguineous marriages among 500 married females was 22.8% with the highest frequency among marriage between first cousins (15.8%). Average inbreeding coefficient up to the marriage between second cousins equals to 0.01172. The linear trend of consanguineous marriages throughout the last 50 years was statistically significant. Age at marriage was younger in consanguineous marriages than non consanguineous marriages. Longstanding familiarity and sharing same traditions and customs with male relatives were the main causes of consanguineous marriages. The majority of the studied females (42.2%) reported that consanguineous marriage is harmful while 29.6% reported that it has no effect on offsprings.”

March 7, 2011

“In a sample of 282 marriages in New Nubia in Egypt, 39% were between first cousins and 21% between less closely related kin. The average number of liveborn offspring in first-cousin marriages was higher than in marriages between more distant relations and unrelated spouses, but the number of deaths among children of first-cousin couples was also higher.”

March 6, 2011

“3.4. Consanguinity by area of residence – Individuals living in villages or small towns (population less than 10,000)were classified as rural dwellers (65% of cases and 73% of controls), while the remainder were considered urban residents. The rates of self-reported consanguinity were similar among cases (36.11% among rural and 38.10% among urban groups) and controls from both groups (17.14% among rural and 20% among the urban control groups).”

Some things which are often treated as purely cultural in humans -- say racial discrimination -- have deep roots in our animal past and thus are quite likely to rest on direct genetic foundations.
-- William D. Hamilton

Let us now consider man in the free spirit of natural history, as though we were zoologists from another planet completing a catalog of social species on Earth.
-- E. O. Wilson